Our award winning sister company TalkFirst Baby Signing has launched a new course teaching Childcare Professionals how to integrate signing into their settings with all children.

There are 2 courses to choose from:

• The starter course introduces staff to the basics of signing and explains the benefits of using signs and speech with all children to enhance language development. It also includes at least 72 child related signs.
• The Follow On course does exactly what it says on the tin and continues and expands vocabulary learnt from the starter course.

Both courses are an absolute joy to attend and are fun, interactive and lively. These courses are available either daytime or evening. Click onto the TalkFirst website for further details.

Wowee Salford – Congratulations on completing your CACDP Level 1 BSL course in 8 days. 12 members of staff undertook 50 hours of intensive learning and assessments during the Summer break with Deaf tutor Geraldine Marsden.

‘Really enjoyed it and I am pleased we will now be able to offer a better service to BSL using students.’

‘Brilliant tutor - really enjoyed the experience.’

We have worked with Blackburn with Darwen Council many times but more recently our work has been with Children’s Services. Throughout 2008 we are training a whole range of people from the childcare workforce and are delivering our Disability Equality and Awareness in Action Course. Due to the nature of the job i.e. childcare, the timing of the courses needed to be flexible and we are offering evening and weekend courses to enable everyone to attend.

Here is a selection of feedback from Childminders on the course 10th and 17th May 2008

Excellent, would highly recommend to anyone.
Best course I’ve been on, brilliant, really enjoyed it.
Best course I have been on for a long time.
Thoroughly enjoyed the course and worth giving up 2 Saturday mornings for!
Very well presented, very interesting, made me think.

If you are look for similar training click here.

Sensory Awareness Course

A fantastic new course we have developed for 2008 in response to the needs of our clients. The 1 day interactive course looks at deaf awareness in the morning, visual awareness in the afternoon and a brief look at deafblindness at the end of the day. The course is aimed at front line staff who come into contact with a range of people everyday. It is particularly useful if you work with older people.

Both Rochdale and Oldham Metropolitan Borough Councils have commissioned the course and were lucky to have local man, 27 year old guest speaker Michael Collins to give them an insight into living with deafblindness.

‘Very well run and enjoyable. Facilitator was excellent, particularly enjoyed visit from Michael – adds a different perspective.’
Adult Care Services RMBC

‘It has given me an awareness that I did not have before and I feel better equipped to do my job’
Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council

For course details click here. (Take to courses page)

When Mary Mullally, PALS Assistant, needed some extra tuition to brush up on her BSL skills she got just that from HearFirst’s Deaf tutor Kate Brierley. It has been Mary’s dream to be able to use her signing to help Deaf patients. Kate helped Mary build up her confidence and refresh her skills. We are pleased to report that Mary is now ready and raring to go and will start her Level 3 BSL in September. Good Luck Mary!

Julie Ryder (HearFirst Founder) wins Barclays Trading Places North West Award. The contest recognises men and women who have overcome various barriers and battled against the odds to positively change their lives by setting up in business. As a regional winner, Julie is guaranteed to receive £1100 worth of Microsoft software and will attend the National finals in October to find out if she is UK winner. Julie entered the awards with HearFirst’s sister company TalkFirst Baby Signing. Click here to go to www.talkfirst.net

April 2008

The M.E.N Arena hosts a diverse range of world class performers from pop, rock, dance and classical, family shows, comedy and sport.

This is what they said after a 1 day Introduction to British Sign Language course with our Deaf tutors Kate and Mickey

• One of the most useful courses we have had
• I definitely want to learn more
• Thoroughly enjoyable and very well presented
• Useful and Interesting
• Very helpful
• Educational but clear and concise.
• The day flew by
• I think we should build this into our inductions and potential training in the future.

Thank you MEN Arena for your comments - we were looking forward to delivering the training and really enjoyed the day . We hope that you will be able to make a difference to Deaf visitors! If you need more signs just let us know.

Double baby news at HearFirst

Our tutor Debi Burridge became a Grandma for the 1st time on 11th March – Congratulations Grandma!!

Also Congratulations to Ash our Training Manager who gave birth to a very beautiful baby girl on 10th March 2008.

Evie Miriam weighed in at 7lbs 3oz. Both Mum, Dad and Evie are all doing great. We are all looking forward to Evie learning to sign.

It always gives us great pleasure to deliver our 1 day Introduction to British Sign Language Course. A little sign language can go a long way and this course proves time after time that our step by step approach works well for our learners. HearFirst deaf tutors Kate and Mickey were well impressed with the staff so keep it up folks – you’re doing good!

By the end of the day the group was ready to learn some work related signs and staff from Salix Homes were shown relevant signs e.g. tenancy, repair, neighbour etc.

Another Introduction to British Sign Language . . .

By the end of the day staff from Blackburn and Darwen PCT were confident, knowledgeable and raring to get going with signing to their deaf patients. This course was a pilot course so if you work for the PCT, contact Jules Wall and get your name down for the next one.

This is what Riccardo Kennedy said, “The course was fantastic. I am certainly interested in furthering my BSL learning.”

Work Solutions March 08

We are very pleased to be working with Work Solutions delivering both ‘Disability Equality and Awareness Training’ and ‘Diversity and Equality Training’.

Work Solutions deliver high quality and innovative services aimed at improving skills and securing employment for the socially excluded, disadvantaged and economically inactive people in the Manchester Sub-region (MSR). Through its network of 15 centres, Work Solutions has a physical presence across Greater Manchester. Work Solutions works in close collaboration with local authorities, Jobcentre Plus, Learning Skills Council (LSC) and various local regeneration partnerships to significantly improve the employment prospects for local people.

In Manchester again – this time with Manchester Care. They offer a range of support services:

• Specialist care
• Care for older people, including older people with dementia and similar needs.
• Adults with mental health needs.
• People with learning disabilities.
• People with physical and sensory disabilities.

We delivered our brand spanking new course to them - ‘Sensory Awareness'. The one day course covers deaf awareness, visual awareness and deafblind awareness. Click here for the course outline.

Karen Smith, Patient Services Manager had a HearFirst experience a couple of years ago when she attended a training event held by Oldham PCT! When she moved to her new role she was keen to get us involved to roll out some Disability Training to almost 100 members of staff ranging from GP’s to Receptionists to Diabetes Nurses!

Karen wanted us to deliver training that would enable providers to be more aware and enable services to be much more accessible for a range of disabled people especially those with hearing difficulties. We tailored our 1 day course to suit their needs.

Tameside GP Patrick Doody said this, “Excellent training, would be good to promote to all GP practices as in house training for their GPs”.

Child minders from Rochdale spent a very cold 2 hours in Rochdale Town Hall learning more about deaf children, their communication methods and equipment they use. The session was very well received and the warmth of our tutor ‘Jayne’ ensured a productive evening for everyone with ALL participants reporting that they had learnt new things and would feel much more confident communicating with a deaf or hard of hearing child.

Success continues at the Dept of Justice. Here are our latest recruits signing ‘court’.

Louise Chambers, Regional Diversity manager is aiming to have at least 2 people in every Court in London trained in basic BSL. The courses are highly successful and more events are planned for 2008.

Louise says,”Thanks for all the great work you have been doing with our front-line staff.”

Julie says, “Don’t mention it. Everyone is picking up the signs really well. Not only that, they are picking up my Lancashire accent as well – it’s just greaaaaate!”

Remploy January 08

HearFirst developed and delivered 5 deaf awareness sessions to workers from the Remploy factory in Huddersfield, Yorkshire. Remploy realises the importance of hearing workers understanding the needs of D/deaf colleagues and vice versa.

“If communication is clear, everyone knows what’s happening and that helps our business performance.”

The sessions were delivered to hearing workers, D/deaf workers and workers with learning difficulties. The training was followed up by a report to management and an action plan to improve working relationships and signing skills within the factory.

Good luck to Remploy Huddersfield in implementing the changes.

Perc January 2008

Over 100 childminders and nursery nurses from Merseyside have now received training in child related signs over several sessions. More courses are planned for 2008.

Gemma works with children in Liverpool City Centre she says, ”I never thought I could learn so many signs in the time we had. Julie was really friendly and made it easy and fun.”

Julie Ryder is runner up in the
Stelios Disabled Entrepreneur of the Year Award